The Best Movies And Series On DC Universe

Superhero media has advanced to a point of such prominence in pop culture now that creators can afford to take chances. We've seen it with Marvel greenlighting films like Guardians of the Galaxy and Warner Bros. deciding to make an R-rated Joker origin story. We've seen it on the small screen, too, thanks to Netflix's The Umbrella Academy and The CW's bevy of DC Comics shows which now include Batwoman, Black Lightning, and more. 

Even amid that landscape, though, Doom Patrol feels like a particularly gutsy call for a fledgling streaming service like DC Universe to make, and it pays off in wonderful ways. Based on the comic book superteam of the same name (best known for Grant Morrison's cult classic run on their title in the 1980s), the series follows a group of broken people united by both superpowers and past trauma. When a dangerous supervillain threatens the man who saved all of their lives, they have to jump into action to save him, even if they're not exactly sure how that all works. 

Featuring a stellar cast that includes Brendan Fraser, Matt Bomer, and Alan Tudyk, Doom Patrol is deliciously weird, self-referential, and fun. Even if you've never read a comic starring these characters, you'll find a world worth getting sucked into.

Superman has been adapted to pretty much every medium outside of comics at this point. It started with a radio show, then expanded to include a TV series, movies, video games, and even novels. For a certain group of fans, though, the brightest version of the Man of Steel came in 1978 with Richard Donner's Superman. 

Arguably the first modern superhero film, Superman arrived at a time when blockbusters were just beginning to take shape as a subset of the movie marketplace, long before tentpole megafranchises and cinematic universes would reshape media forever. Warner Bros. needed to make a pure, uncomplicated version of Superman that would please both kids and adults who'd grown up with the character, and the result is a film that still carries with it a refreshing sense of earnestness more than four decades after its release. Christopher Reeve is fantastic in the title role, eclipsed only by Margot Kidder's Lois Lane. Throw in Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor and the legendary John Williams score, and you've got a superhero essential.

The success of Batman: The Animated Series in the early '90s opened the door for a new wave of DC Comics-inspired storytelling at Warner Bros. Animation, and much of it is available for you to stream on DC Universe. What started with Batman then moved on to Superman: The Animated Series, then Batman Beyond, then the relatively new superhero creation Static Shock. From there, a team-up series was inevitable, and the wonderful Justice League arrived in 2001.

You should absolutely watch Justice League if you haven't made time for it yet, but here we're particularly highlighting Justice League Unlimited. This follow-up acts as a direct continuation of its predecessor, but with a broadened scope and a rotating cast of characters. As such, it's a bit of a newcomer-friendly crash course in the DC Universe in terms of getting to know various heroes and villains and how they work. 

While Justice League gave us a core team roster (Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, and Hawkgirl), Unlimited expands the league in a massive way, keeping the core cast of "founding members" while clearing the way for adventures starring everyone from Black Canary to Mr. Miracle to Jonah Hex. It's jam-packed with comic book lore, and many of the episodes are standalone adventures.

If you're looking for some classic Saturday morning cartoon vibes in your life, pour yourself a bowl of cereal and get ready to watch Super Friends. DC Universe has all nine seasons of the classic cartoon, and whether you watched it when it first aired in the '70s and '80s or grew addicted to reruns on Cartoon Network in the '90s, you'll be able to rediscover your nostalgic love.

Super Friends is, of course, the long-running, constantly evolving Hanna-Barbera series starring the titular DC Comics heroes that were better known on the page as the Justice League of America. The show ran under different titles and formats for over a decade, and one of the most fascinating things about it in retrospect is how you can chart the different storytelling trends it was trying to latch onto. The earliest episodes feature super-powerless sidekicks and the heroes battling a number of mad scientists with crazy schemes. Then things shifted to involve the Wonder Twins, introduced the Legion of Doom, and even fold in then-relatively new creations like Firestorm. This sense of constant change means that the show tries just about everything its format would allow even once, and that makes it very fun to watch.

In 2012, back when Cartoon Network was still airing a very robust block of DC Comics-inspired programming, they introduced a series of short films designed to air in between the large blocks of animated series. The DC Nation Shorts aired until 2014, encompassing a wide range of animation styles and DC Comics subjects, and now you can go check them all out on DC Universe. 

What can you expect? Well, it's a very diverse array of stories centered on everyone from Batman to Animal Man to Booster Gold. Among the most exciting offerings were Batman: Strange Days from Batman: The Animated Series co-creator Bruce Timm, an Aardman Animation-style series called DC's World's Funnest, a group of MAD Magazine-inspired shorts, and even the New Teen Titans shorts that were popular enough to inspire their own animated series, Teen Titans Go! It's a lot to take in, but if you ever feel like breaking the pattern while binge-watching the latest live-action superhero show, you can pop over to the DC Nation Shorts and have a brief little cartoon adventure.

It might seem hard to believe now, at a time when a comic book sequel and an unrelated TV sequel are running simultaneously, but for a long stretch in the 1990s and early 2000s it seemed like we'd never get a Watchmen movie. The original comic book by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons has long been considered one of the most important superhero stories ever created, so naturally Hollywood wanted to adapt it. Still, director after director couldn't seem to make it happen, to the point that the great Terry Gilliam once dubbed the comic "unfilmable." 

Watchmen finally made it to cinemas in 2009 via director Zack Snyder, who was at the time best known for his remake of Dawn of the Dead and his big-screen adaptation of Frank Miller's comic 300. The result is a fascinating exercise in adaptation that's at times almost distractingly devoted to its source material. Featuring an all-star cast, unforgettable visuals, and one infamous sex scene, Watchmen is essential comic book movie viewing.